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Post by artraveler on Jun 13, 2023 16:26:07 GMT -8
If you analyze the universities in economic terms, you might even conclude that the dorms and residences are the profit center driving an elaborate real-estate racket. I spent over 30 years working on university campus, in Sacramento, Utah, and Arkansas. My perception of the racket is not entirely real estate but the selling of the "experience" to 18 year olds and more importantly to their parents who foot the bill. It is not just the buildings, although they bring in millions from donors who want their names on the buildings. Write a check for a million dollars and get your name on the executive outhouse. The real money for universities come from two sources. The first is apparent, tuition which has exceeded inflation for the last 40 years. The other is more invisible. It is the university food program. Very few universities operate their own food service programs. They contract out to various companies like, Marriott, Chartwells and others. Thus, their only expense for the food programs on campus is the salary of a contract administrator. Parents of freshman entering university are prompted to purchase food programs that are sold as providing all the necessary nutrition the apple of their eye requires. If this were true the idea of freshmen 15 would not exist. Almost every student staying in dorms gains weight their freshman year, many every year they are in university. Freshmen and Sophomores are generally required to live in the dorms until the junior year. Thus, creating a captive market. The first two weeks of the fall semester the kids eat every meal and use up any allowance for free spending. As the semester goes on fewer and fewer student eat two or three meals a day. Until by the last weeks of the semester they have used only about 50% of their meal plan. It is here the university and the contractor make a killing. There are no refunds. If you purchased a plan that provides 12-14 meals a week, you are out of luck if you don't use it. To keep the numbers easy, say a meal plan costs the parents $3,000 and only half is used the university and the contractor split the unused portion, generally 50/50. Additionally, all the vending on campus is operated by the contractor or the university in conjunction with the contractor and vending profits are split the same 50/50. Soft drinks, including bottled water, are regulated by contract with Coke or Pepsi with the company paying millions for access to the market directly to the university on a yearly basis and a percentage of the gross to the university before the split with the food contractor who gets a percentage of the net. At the University of Arkansas the combined revenue from food service and vending for a campus of 30,000 exceeds $30,000,000 per year. Revenue from sports events is separate but also exceeds 30 million a year just for football and basketball. All-in-all tuition is one of the least expensive things on campus.
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Post by kungfuzu on Jun 13, 2023 18:24:42 GMT -8
The info about the food program is very interesting.
There is little doubt that "higher" education has become a big industry. Far too many people are attending college and university who should not be. But the system must generate numbers to take advantage of the various cons. I have long pointed out the way that the American university system has opened up to foreign students. There are about 1 million foreign students in the system and they generally pay full tuition. No in-state discounts for them. This helps keep tuition growing faster than inflation.
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Post by kungfuzu on Jun 13, 2023 18:41:41 GMT -8
I agree with you. Thiel being a "married" homosexual, I do not see how he could have an in-depth understanding of Christianity, or claim to be a Christian. Such people, and others, have stretched, bent and distorted the New Testament throughout history. In any case, they do not want to look too closely at the Bible as to do so would disabuse them of their flaccid theology.
Marxists and others who claim to have based their systems on Christian principles do not understand Christianity or are lying. First and foremost, an overused but appropriate phrase, Christianity is concerned with one's relationship to God. Marxists, and their ilk, take one tenet of Christianity and raise it to a preeminent position, disregarding the most important commandment as per Christ, "‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’
Being nice, or even good is not enough. The basic tenet of Christianity is that Christ sacrificed himself in order to take the sins of humanity upon himself, and one must declare one's belief in him as the Savior to gain salvation.
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Brad Nelson
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Post by Brad Nelson on Jun 13, 2023 20:32:08 GMT -8
Ahhhhhh. Now I see. Your analysis is spot on.
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Post by artraveler on Jun 14, 2023 9:02:55 GMT -8
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. Christ took it straight from the Torah. One of the reasons that Christians and Jews have so very much in common and almost nothing with Islam. At the very best Islam is a heresy of both Judaism and Christianity.
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Brad Nelson
Administrator
עַבְדְּךָ֔ אֶת־ הַתְּשׁוּעָ֥ה הַגְּדֹלָ֖ה הַזֹּ֑את
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Post by Brad Nelson on Jun 14, 2023 9:36:26 GMT -8
If eyewitness accounts are to be believed, and the general scripture is correct: Jesus was a Jew who was here to fulfill the Old Testament and further establish our covenant with God. He was not here to create a new religion, per se. That existing covenant, best that I can tell, was to be universalized via Him as a special case of God merging with man and thus providing a more personalized pathway. The ontological underpinning, (God as man? Man as God?) I can't begin to understand, although thousands have been killed trying to split hairs over it.
The Jews prepared the soil for all this. And, indeed, Islam is a heresy.
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Post by kungfuzu on Jun 14, 2023 10:11:14 GMT -8
Speaking of scripture, the Southern Baptist Convention is one of the few denominations which actually adhere to the words of the New Testament. Women can do a lot in the Church, but they cannot be pastors if one follows the actual words of the New Testament. The Catholics still get this. Baptists throw out Saddleback
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Post by kungfuzu on Jun 14, 2023 10:13:59 GMT -8
Exactly. This is the basic commandment/theme which runs through both religions. Both are primarily about a person's relationship with God.
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Post by artraveler on Jun 14, 2023 11:52:48 GMT -8
Both are primarily about a person's relationship with God. The basic difference, in my view, is Christians will always have a close personal relationship with G-d, yet have difficultly living in community with others. We Jews, on the other hand, hold G-d as a very powerful friend who has gifted us with Torah so we can live together in community with any other group of people just by keeping to the law. Thew law, summed up is love one another as you love your self. Sadly, over the last 2000 years that subtlety has been forgotten by both all too often or ignored.
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Post by artraveler on Jun 14, 2023 12:01:18 GMT -8
Southern Baptist Convention Don't forget the Church of Christ. Not only do they restrict women from the pulpit but there is no music other than A cappella, not even a guitar. Everyone sings in their own unique key, most often off or flat.
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Post by kungfuzu on Jun 14, 2023 12:16:57 GMT -8
I know them quite well as this is the denomination I was raised in. As to their A cappella singing, while it might be true that many sing off key, my voice professor in college observed that his students/members of his choir, who were raised in the Church of Christ, were better at singing in key and better singers than those from other denominations. And he was a Lutheran from Minnesota. (I being his best, of course.) I might have previously mentioned a story about our neighbors who lived directly across the street. They were Southern Baptists. One day, during a conversation about religion which was, I believe, specifically about different denominations' conservatism/adherence to Scripture, Mr. K., who we knew well said "the Baptists keep an eye on the other Protestant denominations, and the Church of Christ keeps an eye on the Baptists." That pretty well summed things up.
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Post by kungfuzu on Jun 14, 2023 13:40:32 GMT -8
I think the basic root of the above is the combination of Church and State. Prior to Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire (AD 380 Edict by Theodosius I) Christians had been citizens of, or dwelt in, the Empire and lived peacefully side-by-side others. (Except when Christians had be persecuted.) From that time forward, Christianity was used as a unifying creed for political purposes. First by the Roman Emperors in Constantinople and Ravenna. During this time, there were divisions within Christianity such as Arianism. These divisions had to be erased for political purposes.
The Franks were the first Germanic tribe who accepted Catholicism. This was done, as with almost all religions, from the top down. The king became a Catholic and so did his followers. (I am simplifying things somewhat) Thereafter the Franks became "Defenders of the Faith" and preeminent in the West. They fought other Germanic tribes, particularly pagan tribes, and Arians. Charlemagne was the apex of this movement. He received the crown from the Pope and accepted the obligation of protecting the papacy. Thus the roots of the Holy Roman Empire.
From AD 380 to very recently, Christianity and State were very closely tied. Power does not allow dissent, thus the inability of Christianity to get along with other creeds.
From, latest, AD 70 until AD 1947, Judaism has had no State power with which it could abuse other believers. As small minorities Jews generally kept aloof from others, thus hoping to stay out of trouble. Throughout much of history, Jews were given special protection by various European kings, i.e. they were not answerable to local potentates, at least theoretically. Of course, things could be quite different at any particular spot. I believe this inherent weakness is, at least partially, responsible the Jews' ability to get along with others. They were forced to.
I think the separation of Church and State was a great step forward in governance. That said, I think a significant cultural agreement amongst the citizens of a nation is required for a nation to big strong and survive. Religion is a cornerstone of culture.
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Post by Brad Nelson on Jun 14, 2023 15:02:01 GMT -8
I once fell pray to the egalitarianism of the sexes. I found myself mouthing the same platitudes...long ago. It's funny how easy it is to be programmed. Unlike Pat (he's still out there doing his business and being involved in Republican Party politics...I frankly hate the party with a passion, but he's trying to build it from the inside), I wasn't born a conservative. He was and I believe him. He left home at an early age and had to make his way in the world quickly. And he didn't become the owner of a fairly substantial tech company by playing the victim. But it took me some time. In theory, there's no reason a woman couldn't preach the gospel. Certainly I can see many circumstances where a good woman speaker is going to be better than some of the many lame male preachers out there. But as Dennis Prager notes, there are many good reasons that God is called "him" instead of "her," even though the Almighty would be beyond such distinctions. However, men are the actors for authority, for drawing clear distinctions between right and wrong. And note, this is precisely why it is Job-#1 for Leftists to marginalize men. No normal man on this planet would ever go in for Drag Queen Story Hour, for instance. So if you're going to preach and teach the Word of God, it's just not going to work for it to be a woman. Women are not the dispensers of justice. Men often dispense justice very badly. But they are the only one who, by and large, can truly do so.
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Brad Nelson
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Post by Brad Nelson on Jun 14, 2023 15:11:40 GMT -8
Prager also has a PragerU video on Deuteronomy. It's worth watching: Deuteronomy: Why It's Hard to Love God. To my mind, Christians aren't Jewish enough and Jews aren't Christian enough. And it occurs to me, and not for the first time, that the truth will most likely piss off just about everybody. But we need less airheaded wishy-washing sentimental hogwash from the Christians and more deep, purposeful Old Testament wisdom from them. And from Jews, please just stop the hell worshiping Karl Marx in various guises. I think that short video by Prager is quite profound. I find it highly credible that to "know" God and to love God in any meaningful way could indeed take years. Christians too easily fall into the soup of "I'm okay/You're okay" feel-goodism and Jews too easily fall into legalism (when they're not swapping spit with Karl Marx and his derivatives). Without that combination of tough-love compassion and Old Testament "thou shalt not," what you have is one of various forms of self-absorbed Sentimental Hogwash, and not a pathway to God for the betterment of oneself and others. I think what you say about general community is probably technically correct these days. Christians tend to be self-absorbed and Jews are more tribal oriented. There's a happy medium in there somewhere, I think.
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Brad Nelson
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Post by Brad Nelson on Jun 14, 2023 15:14:32 GMT -8
LOL.
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Post by artraveler on Jun 14, 2023 19:20:13 GMT -8
And from Jews, please just stop the hell worshiping Karl Marx in various guises. This is happening, although in communities that traditionally do not get into the news and, in general, seek to remain outside of the larger community, Christian and secular. I speak of the Haredi or ultra-orthodox. In terms of values they match with the evangelical Christians and they have lots of children. The leftist Jews in NY LA, and SF make the main stream news as the leaders of American Judaism but the orthodox are the future.
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Post by artraveler on Jun 15, 2023 16:26:31 GMT -8
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Brad Nelson
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עַבְדְּךָ֔ אֶת־ הַתְּשׁוּעָ֥ה הַגְּדֹלָ֖ה הַזֹּ֑את
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Post by Brad Nelson on Jun 15, 2023 18:30:19 GMT -8
I don't think this is just some flamer with his hair on fire. I think he really means it. Thanks for the heads-up, Herr Artler.
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Post by kungfuzu on Jun 15, 2023 19:27:57 GMT -8
I strongly believe that if such a bill were to pass, it would be litigated and found unconstitutional. That said, I can understand why people would want to get out of California asap. I have only one request, "Don't come to Texas."
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Post by kungfuzu on Jun 15, 2023 19:34:14 GMT -8
I believe that the need to worship some higher "being" is inherent to most people. It just seems to be more inherent in Jews. Once they worship something, they are extremely devout and faithful to that "being." Left-wing Jews are in thrall to The God of "History" with Hegal as Jesus and Marx as Paul.
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